Quote Originally Posted by NekoMataMata View Post
Is there anything out there to move on to? This is my first and only MMO. Like yeah, I could go back to mainly pvp games, but it's not really the same.
A question I found myself asking of the game I played prior to moving to FFXIV. In fact, my experience of that game is probably the reason that I don't make much of a fuss about FFXIV's perceived shortcomings.

That isn't to say that I disagree with some of the criticism - some fair points have been, and whilst I'm not going to pretend that I didn't enjoy Endwalker as I did for the most part.

Coming from a game with a very heavy commitment to gambleboxes, a very sleazy attitude toward said gambleboxes ("we don't sell gambleboxes, we sell virtual currency that players can choose to use to purchase an item that opens the boxes"), Pay to Win, lack of any new playable content due to said commitment to making items to put in gambleboxes or expensive (up to £600) multi-item bundles instead of making playable content, and a CM and Devs who seem to have little issue with using their personal Twitter accounts to badmouth player feedback. In fact, one of them did so recently - bemoaning the fact that they produced some new stuff and players had the audacity to ask for more. I could go on, but see little point.

To be fair, it was a gradual decline that picked up momentum - they clearly looked to the mobile-gaming industry and tried to apply the cash-grab mentality that those games often adopt to an MMO. And it came at the cost of new content - one or two new pieces of 45-minute's worth of story content every six months.

Point is, I guess I still feel as if FFXIV has been a breath of fresh air after playing a game run by a company with nothing in mind beyond strip-mining as much revenue as they can from players/customers via gambleboxes.